4 Keys to a Profitable and Impactful Virtual Summit

 We talk a lot about the more surface-level pieces of hosting a virtual summit, but let’s dive a little deeper into what goes into a profitable virtual summit.

We'll talk about 4 of the most important parts of your summit that will boost profits, increase your visibility, and create a whole lot more impact.

A Profitable Virtual Summit

The audience and topic you choose for your summit will make all the difference.

These pieces are the most important parts of a summit that are going to bring you profits, visibility, and impact.

Let's compare two example audiences. Say we have one summit for online business owners and then we have another summit for wedding professionals. Which one of those is going to stop a wedding planner as she's scrolling through Facebook and sees an ad pop up? It's going to be the one for wedding professionals, right?

Let's add in the topic now. Let's say we have a summit for wedding professionals to help them grow their business. Then let's say we have another summit for wedding professionals to book more brides on Instagram. Which one is going to catch their attention? It's the one that's going to help them do something specific.

When you have a general summit,  

1. It's not going to catch anyone's attention except very beginner entry-level business owners.
2. You get people's attention by speaking to a problem that they're having that's unique to them.

Something like a summit for wedding professionals to book more brides on Instagram, that's speaking to a problem. That's something that they want specifically. That's how you host a successful summit. The niche and topic catch their attention, and it's also how you can get your presentations focused enough to benefit your audience.

If your business has a wide niche, narrow it down for your summit.

For example:

• I know a VA for creative business owners who hosted a summit just for photographers and she saw incredible results.
• I have a good friend who runs a theme shop for bloggers and creative business owners who are planning a summit just for either home or lifestyle bloggers.

Both people are taking their wide audience and narrowing it down so they can host a specific, helpful, and successful summit.

Choosing speakers for your summit

Get speakers with the same audience as your summit. It's easy to fall into the trap of pitching people that we already know or that we can think of off the top of our head to talk about a specific topic: You think of a topic you need, you consider the first friend or acquaintance that comes to mind, and you put them on the list.

Do the work to connect with people who target the same audience that your summit will. Your results are going to increase so many times over.

Think about your audience first

The third thing I want you to consider is to think about your audience first. A summit is so exciting to put together and it's natural to dream about how it's going to grow our business, how it's going to help us. But the interesting thing is, our business isn't what we should be focused on.

For the most part, think of your audience first throughout all your planning. The more you help your audience, the more they will help you.

For example, maybe you want to have your friends as speakers and let them choose their presentation topics. But what if those presentation topics don't end up interesting your audience at all. Instead, you need to start with what your audience wants to learn, what they need help with, and choose the topics and speakers from there.

Another example is that you want to run your whole summit through email because managing a Facebook group is too much work, and you think email will be easier. The connections made in an engaged Facebook group will do so much more for your summit than you could ever dream of doing through email. Seeing other people excited and learning things from your summit will pull all kinds of other people in and your attendees will be able to get more from the summit if they're in a community of other people going through it along with them.

Showing up during your summit

The next thing I want to talk about is showing up. Once Day 1 of your summit hits and the prep work is done, you are not done. That's not when you would just get to check out and watch what you've created come to life.

It is so important to show up throughout your summit and so many people miss this. You never want to host a summit and have people leave after the fact without a clue of who you are. You as the host need to show up, and that is not just through sending emails.

This starts on your registration page. We've talked about this before, but I want to know:

• Is your face on your registration page?
• Do you have a video introducing yourself and the summit besides just your written bio?

It all starts there in the first experience that people will have with you and your brand. This gets even more important throughout the promotion period and this summit itself.

Think about how you can show up each and every day to provide value with the goal of keeping everyone excited, engaged in learning, and putting yourself in front of them.

For example, in my summit during the promotion period, this looks like doing at least two weekly bonus trainings during the promotion period in my Facebook group and showing up the other days to interact with them and answer questions as they're waiting for this thing to start during the summit.

It means I'm:

• responding to people quickly in the Facebook group
• cheering on my speakers in the chatbox
• asking engaging questions to get everyone talking
• showing up to keep everyone moving and to keep me in front of them after the summit

The way I'm asking you to do this, there's going to be no doubt in anyone's mind who the host is and you're going to be able to make everyone's experience so much better just by being there and showing up.

Once those registrations start rolling in, that's not the time to sit back and relax. Double down on your efforts. Show up, help people, get yourself in front of them because it's going to be so worth it.

Putting the Pieces Together

Think about who you're hosting the summit for each step of the way.

Resources

• 12 Secrets To Your First Profitable Online Summit
• Episode 4: Discover Your Ideal Virtual Summit Audience
• Episode 5: Choose a Profitable Virtual Summit Topic
• Episode 16: 5 Ways to Find Virtual Summit Speakers
• Summit Host Hangout Facebook group

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